Monday, June 11, 2007

Tax Dollars At Work -- Cleaning Illegals' Waste

So much waste, from trash to fecal left-behinds, is deposited on our soil by illegals crossing into El Norte that the tab to clean it up is estimated by Judicial Watch to be $63 million -- they don't say whether that's an annual cost, but it just might be, since there are tens of millions of pounds of trash to contend with.

After three years of very costly cleanups, the federal government has barely put a dent on the massive problem which has ruined the vegetation and wildlife in this country’s most prized national forests. With the help of volunteer groups, the federal government has removed a mere 1% of the trash--about 250,000 pounds--from thousands of acres.

The litter includes water bottles, clothes, razors, homemade weapons, food, ropes, radios and lots of human waste. The trash, from millions of illegal immigrants attempting to enter the country annually, is piling up at a much faster rate than it can be cleaned up and has proven to be devastating to the area’s natural habitat.

As an example the government agency responsible for the cleanup, the Bureau of Land Management, figures that the 577,000 illegal immigrants apprehended by the Border Patrol in 2005 alone, left about 4 million pounds of trash during that period.

Illegals' illegal camp fires have also caused an up-tick in wildfires, which cost millions more dollars to fight.

If you're done stewing and grumbling, think for a minute of the waves of immigrants from the the early 20th century waves. Can you imagine them stepping off the ferry from Ellis Island and defecating in the street? Do you suppose they greeted their new land by filling the "streets of gold" with the trash they collected on the Atlantic crossing?

No, of course not, because most of those immigrants came here for life, with a conviction that America was great, and would be home to their children and grandchildren.

Granted, there aren't a lot of trash cans and latrines laid out across America's southern deserts, but the trash situation illustrates how different today's immigrant wave is from previous ones -- a difference that isn't addressed in the last round immigration bill. It worked off the assumption people were coming here to stay, with a guest worker program insufficient to make up for the difference between the number migrating and the number of guest worker passes.

Not that we need more evidence to support the border fence, but if we could limit crossings to planned urban crossing points, we would not have illegals destroying our wilderness with their trash. So add this to your list of reasons to cry out to DC to fix the border first, then fix everything else that's wrong with our immigration policy.

"Thank you for the "Voice of the Victims films. The students really liked them, and it means so much to them to hear real stories and not watch a cheesy drama like so many other videos."
— High school teacher.